[NEWS] MAME system pack

[Tom Speirs]

You could always help the cause and not wait for the discount to be available

[Tom Speirs]

Well, I decided to put the discount in place early.

20% off for GameEx Founding members on lifetime Evolution with Lifetime online access.

So put your money where your mouth is. lol

[sms2169]

Hi guys everytime i try to download the mame pack it gets to 18% and says it gets interrupted, then if i try to resume it says i cant download the file or corrupt. thx

[RIP-Felix]

I had to log into the FTP in filezilla to get it. My browser's download manager kept failing too, but FTP works like a champ.

[DazzleHP]

Yeah FF has basically destroyed itself, get yourself a dedicated program, and grab what you can from the FTP, there is crazy amount of stuff there

 

Being an Elite, it's your privilege to do so

[decker12]

I have been trying to download this file for a few hours now without any luck. I paid for the yearly membership just to get this file, and I'm getting a blazing 600kb/s via FTP, which will take a very, very long time to get this file. CuteFTP has reported over 90mb/s for my other downloads to other FTP sites, so I know it's not my connection.

How can I get the file faster?

[Draco1962]

Not having any issues with Filezilla.

[decker12]

I'm not sure why my FTP program would make a difference. Today I was downloading several files that all exceeded 80mb/s in transfer speed with CuteFTP. When I try to download via Gameex's FTP site, I max out at about 1mb/s, which is about the same speed I get when I try to download it via http. I'd venture to say something isn't right with Gameex's servers if I'm getting great transfer speeds everywhere else but from this location.

Is there another way for me to obtain the file? I've tried to download it several times via FTP and it eventually times out after about 45 minutes and I have to reconnect to resume it, and it dies 20 minutes later. I can grab it via a torrent on my seedbox and I can help seeding it, too.

On another note, pretty sure I'm all set as far as the package is concerned. I installed the latest MAME version, added my latest ROMs, and then let the Artwork download for a while. It appears I do have most if not all of the cabinets and graphics and whatnot, which is what I assume this package offers? Or does it offer more as it's 19GB and my total downloaded artwork isn't anywhere near that size?

[tthurman]

This isn't the normal extra's pack, but I'm sure there is much in common between the two of them.  This version however is only available here, and via ftp is the recommended method.  I'm using FileZilla, have never had a time out problem, and haven't experienced one while downloading it this time either. 

[decker12]

I'm still having absolutely no luck downloading this file after a week of trying. I've tried several FTP programs, all of them top out at only 2mb/s and that's when I try to download it at totally off peak time at 2AM, and all of them time out after about an hour. I've tried from two different locations and ISPs as well.

It's pretty frustrating. As I said, one of the main reasons I paid for the service is to get a one stop download for MAME that comes with all the great artwork and whatnot that I see in the Youtube trailer. It's clearly a problem on Gameex server side as I can't get it downloading at any reasonable speed no matter what ISP or program I use, on two different computers. Hell, I even tried downloading it from a workstation at work which has a huge fiber line. If your servers cannot host the file, can you post it somewhere that can host it?

 

[tthurman]

Well I suppose you could open a support ticket, but I'm not so certain that it's clearly a sign of problems with the GameEx server.  I downloaded these in their entirety after your post, just to ensure there wasn't an issue.  One by one they came down without one single problem, which wouldn't be indicative that there's a problem with the server.

As far as speed goes, I settled in around 600 myself, but saw bursts up to 2.4.  While perhaps not ideal for everyone, the server has to balance the loads it's presented with, and does not have unlimited bandwidth available to it.  Sorry your unsatisfied, but there is no speed guarantee that I'm familiar with.

<edit> 

To add to this, I encountered a similar issue with a customer on a 100 Mbps circuit who could only get 600k, while I was getting in the Mbps.  FTP throttling is not an uncommon practice among isp's.

Edited January 28, 2017 by tthurman

[RIP-Felix]

@decker12 Sorry man, I honestly don't know why your having trouble. If no one else is able to verify your issue, it must be on your side. I thought I would verify that I'm currently FTPing it via Filezilla @ 1.4MiB/s. It would be done in around 4 hours if i continued; I already have it, I just wanted to make sure I could still DL it from the servers. I'm not even going to try a browser download manager, I couldn't get that to work (Timeout issues). One question. I know you said you tried and failed with FTP from home. However, when you tried from work did you connect via FTP or a brower DL Manager? Stick with FTP.

I'd recommend all the usual network connection troubleshooting (Pull router plug, wait 30s, etc). Make sure you have a good connection to the internet and are receiving your ISP's quoted UPs and Downs from a speed test site. If not troubleshoot the rest of the network tree. Try plugging in directly to your router/modem (If not already) and try again. Disable your antivirus firewall temporarily, maybe lower User Account Control security Setting (I hate warning messages and disable it altogether. I doubt it matters, but maybe). Check router settings and make sure there are no security setting that may be limiting certain connection types or websites (I'm not sure what settings to look for, google, but I know it can be done within router firmware. If it's default, I wouldn't think there to be an issue).

Other than that, I don't see why GameEx servers would single you out. Murphy's law maybe. The only other option I can think of is to piece together the artwork yourself the way we all had to before this pack (lots to time, many sites). EMUmovies is a good place to start. Progettosnaps.net is a great resource after that. Torrents, despite being seedy recesses of the greynet, are sometimes capable of having something difficult to find. Let's hope you get it sorted before you have to go that route, I know you purchased partially for this pack, and while it's not the main product, you should get what you paid for. Good luck buddy, and sorry for the trouble.

[MNMax21]

Emumovies has a FTP too. I snagged video themes over there.

The key for me with the MAME system pack was to start it and not have my computer go to sleep. I had a few issues at first, but I realized my computer was going to sleep and stopping the connection.

[decker12]

Thanks for the tips. I'm a systems administrator and I went through the usual troubleshooting steps. I singled out the Gameex server because at home or at work, via HTTP or FTP, using my i7 on Windows 10 at home or my Macbook Pro at work, every other download I'm getting over 80mb/s, to a variety of sites. Ditto to downloading from Steam, Origin, uPlay, etc. I'm absolutely certain it's not on my end.

The biggest issue is what has already been mentioned: the download tops out at around 2mb/s. In this day and age of high speed internet, for a 20GB file, that's just not fast enough. The other issue is the timeouts which occurred again in both locations. The download would be fine for about an hour, and then time out. Fortunately my FTP programs support a resume feature so I wasn't having to start over at 0.

I have an underutilized seedbox and I'd be glad to host a torrent or magnet link of this file which will probably offer much faster download speeds. The only trick would be making sure only authorized paying customers get access to the torrent.

I am pretty sure I managed to get the download complete, by unfortunately being a huge jerk to the Gameex servers by using a script to disconnect and reconnect me every 15 minutes and forcing it to resume. I have no actual idea how long it took to download but it was done in the morning, and I'm attempting an install now. Oddly after I extract the ZIP file I'm seeing 5GB but "20 GB on Disk", so I wonder if I actually managed to get the full file.

Edit: I can't seem to install the product. "Invalid System Pack Path" when I hit Go. Do I need to install BOTH Gameex and Gameex Evolution? I already have Gameex Arcade and the regular Gameex installed and I was under the impression that Evolution was Alpha and not really recommended for people to use. Sorry to be such a pest, but now that I think I have the file, I can't find proper documentation on how to actually install it.

My guess is that "Invalid System Pack Path" means that I actually don't have a complete version of the files and the screwing around I did trying to download did indeed did not work. I'm about to give up on this, I can't spend hours and hours trying to get the "One click Easy Method" working.

 

[MNMax21]

It depends on leaving everything where it is in the system pack. I at first moved files around from the pack to places where I already had media on my main Drive. I then received the same error. I then decided to just leave everything where it was in the MAME system pack folder and placed that on my main C:/ and that worked after I put my GameEx path and ran it.

I really like my media files for MAME to be right in my MAME dir file, so I ended up just taking the media files and placing them in the MAME folder. I then used the setup wizard to direct everything to the right paths. Basically, I used the system pack download for the media and MAME emulator. I then placed everything into one MAME folder and set the paths up through the GameEx setup wizard.

[decker12]

Still no go with the installer. I have my system setup as follows, and still getting the error when I try to install the System Pack:

C:\GameEx (Config, Data, Loaders, etc - all the stuff downloaded from this site as GameExSetup.zip)
C:\GameExSystemPack (Contains the System Pack I had so much trouble downloading with the Mame System Pack Installer.exe)
D:\MAME\ROMs (all my MAME 1.8 ROMS, which won't fit on the C: drive anyway)

However, I am still worried that I don't have a complete download. My System Pack ZIP file is 20GB, but when I unzip it, Size of the unzipped folder is 5.64gb with 39,398 files, but confusingly, "Size on Disk" for that same folder reports 22.5GB.

[Tom Speirs]

If it unzips I would think its fine but that error would indicate missing files? DId you extract with 7-zip or something else? Most pros just using 7-zip these days. Did you get the files from the FTP or here?

[Tom Speirs]

I am just testing now. First trying with windows built in zip extract.

It did download okay from the FTP. I had to resume  and it was slow at times but all looks good so far.

[Tom Speirs]

Sorry, don't know what to tell you. Works fine for me. I am testing for the second time now. Will report back.

[decker12]

I give up. Tried for another whole week trying to download this file again. Probably restarted and resumed the FTP 50 or 60 times over the week because it timed out after an hour or so. The fastest transfer speed I saw during the entire week was no more than 2mb/s and that was only for a few minutes. Mostly I was averaging less than 1mb/s.

Finally got what my FTP program considered a complete download just to find it had error after error during extraction, which means all those starts and stops messed up the archive which is understandable.

You may want to put some sort of warning on the file, or break it apart into smaller pieces. If I can't make it happen after a month with 3 different computers on two different ISPs (one of them being a true GigE business level fiber connection), all of which offer me 70mb/s+ download speeds on every other FTP sites or web site, I don't think there's anything else me or anyone else can do to reliably get this file.

I've even tried to SSH into my seedbox and start an old fashioned FTP process that way but every time I try to transfer the files (or even do a ls on the FTP directory) I get a "SSL3_GET_RECORD:wrong version number" error which lets me know something isn't right with the Windows FTP server that is hosting the files.

Sorry if this sounds so bitter but I have truly used all available options at my disposal to download this single file. I'm willing to help other people by hosting it via a magnet link but I can't do that unless I get a full copy of the file.

 

[RIP-Felix]

@Tom Speirs I'm going to try to FTP it overnight (Filezilla). I haven't tried to DL the whole file since release, so maybe there are issues midway that don't pop up unless you commit to the whole thing. I live on the opposite side of the pond, so maybe I can reproduce @decker12's issue..

So far: 5 mins in, 139kiB/s

***EDIT***

Okay, Results: It completed at 2am, approximately 5 hours after starting the DL. Compressed file size is reported at 20,461,856 bytes. After unzipping with 7z the file reports as 21.1GB size on disk. It appears to be intact and good to go.

I should mention that my network isn't that simple, but it's not that complicated either. I have xfinity ISP 25Mb/s (Stupid crappy 3 in 1 wifi router/cable/phone that drops in and out all the time). It's connected to a Ethernet through Powerline router (wall wart) to establish a high speed connection to my room. From there I have a switch that my computer, TV, and game systems connect to. So both the switch and the ETP router have to play nice with the Crapcast gateway, and don't always. Even still, I managed to DL the file.

@decker12 I'm very sorry for your trouble and understand your frustration. As a systems administrator, in your opinion why would 2 computers separated by over 9000miles be able to DL the file just fine if there were a problem with the server? Almost sounds like something else is interfering with your DL, like censorship or an ISP blocking it. However, you said you tried 3 different ISPs, so unless they all flagged the file, unlikely since it doesn't contain anything proprietary and isn't being sold, that can't be it. Honestly, I don't understand it. Thank you for the report, however, we'll keep it mind going forward.

@Tom Speirs As for his idea of putting a "warning on the files" or some kind of disclaimer, I think besides telling people that it's a very large file and takes a long time to DL, we're doing everything we can. The "Law of parsimony" (Occam's Razor) would seem to apply. Unless we get more reports of this issue, or can reproduce it, It's more likely the problem is not on our end. We should however, keep Decker12's report in mind in case this pops up again and thank him for bringing it to our attention. Even if it's not on our end, we can at least inform people that it's been observed before.

[MNMax21]

I've downloaded it twice without issue. It took awhile and I had to make sure my computer didn't go to sleep. It's worked both times. I accidentally deleted after the first time, which resulted in the second DL

[decker12]

I agree, it's baffling as to why I cannot seem to get this file no matter what I try. As a last resort, I have a server located in Colorado that I'm going to set up to download the file, and if it succeeds I'll download it from there to my local computer in California. I'll let you know how that goes. Thanks for your own investigations - I do love the GameEx product and have put many hours into reliving my childhood, I just wish I could get it to look as cool as I see in the YouTube trailer!

 

[MNMax21]

You can get media from emumovies.com too. If the system pack doesn't work. I'm not sure if the wheel style video themes are in the system pack or not.

[decker12]

I was able to grab the file using my seedbox. The speed fluctuated quite a bit, from 300kb/s all the way up to 6MB/s. Took about 5 hours to download but I've finally managed to obtain it. Thanks for your help.